1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method according to the preamble of the appended claim 1 for downloading the control software of two or more operating systems/user interfaces into an electronic device. The invention also relates to an electronic device and storing means according to the method.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
In this specification, the downloading of an operating system/user interface refers to the installation of the operating system and/or user interface into an electronic device in connection with its initialization, as well as to the updating of pre-installed control software of the operating system/user interface e.g. with a new version or with a different language version.
Electronic devices have been developed, in which features of two or more different devices, such as a mobile station and a data processing device, are combined. An example of such a device is the Nokia Communicator, in which a mobile station and a personal digital assistant are integrated in the same housing. However, these different functional units may have separate components, such as processors, memory means and a user interface which comprises for example a display, a keypad, a receiver and/or a microphone. Nevertheless, these functional blocks, which hereinbelow will be called a processor block, are provided with a data transmission connection between them, e.g. a serial bus, wherein these processor blocks can communicate with each other. To control the functions of such a device, a device-specific operating system is often developed. Typically, in such an integrated device, a separate operating system is implemented for each processor block. The basic function of the operating system is to take care of processor block system timings, resource management, user interface control, as well as message processing and transmission between the different program blocks of the same processor block and between different processor blocks.
In an electronic device, the operating system or part of it is stored e.g. in a fixed memory, such as a read only memory ROM. A problem with such a read only memory is, however, that in order to update the operating system into a newer version, a new read only memory circuit has to be installed, in which a new operating system version is stored. This change is difficult and requires opening of the housing of the device. Therefore, it has become common to use non-volatile random access memory circuits NVRAM, by means of which it is possible to update the operating system without opening the housing of the device. Such non-volatile memory circuits can be electrically erased, wherein the old system is deleted and written over with a new one before updating the operating system. However, also in this alternative, it is necessary that a new updating program is stored in the processor of the device to enable deleting of the old operating system and storing of the new one in the memory area allocated for the operating system. There are known non-volatile memory circuits whose memory space is organized into different blocks, wherein the memory can be erased for example one block at a time. Furthermore, one or more blocks can be protected in such a way that they cannot be erased, and thus the downloading software of the operating system is advantageously placed in such a protected memory block. However, the section that is to be updated is placed into the other blocks.
In devices of prior art, the installation and updating of an operating system is implemented in such a way that the device is arranged to be provided with a programming module or the like, through which the new operating system can be downloaded. This programming module comprises e.g. a serial mode interface via which the new operating system can be transferred to the programming module for example by means of a personal computer PC. One drawback in this arrangement is, for instance, that a separate module is required for each operating system necessary in the electronic device. Furthermore, the electronic device contains a separate interface for each processor block for the downloading of the operating system. Another possibility is to supply the operating system in a separate interface card, such as a memory card, that can be coupled to the electronic device. Thus, the new operating system can be implemented by replacing the old interface card with a new interface card. However, it is still necessary to provide each processor block with a separate interface, which complicates the structure of the device, requires more space, and increases the manufacturing costs of the device.
Furthermore, the downloading of the operating system via the serial bus of the computer is usually slow, because the speed of such a serial bus is not very high, typically 115 kilobits per second at the highest. The size of the operating system to be downloaded can be several megabytes, even tens of megabytes, wherein the downloading can take tens of minutes.
Even though the above discussion presented problems occurring in electronic devices of prior art when downloading entire operating systems, corresponding problems can also occur in situations when it is not necessary to download the operating systems as a whole, but only parts of these operating systems.
As was mentioned above, electronic devices of the above kind also comprise several user interfaces. To control these different user interfaces, control software for the user interface is installed in the electronic device. This control software can be partly integrated in the functions of the operating system, but e.g. for implementing different language versions, part of the control software of the user interface is implemented to be independent of the operating system. The control software of the user interfaces is also stored in the memory of the electronic device, advantageously at least partly in a (re-)writable memory. Problems similar to the aforementioned ones in installing and updating of operating systems are partly entailed in installing and updating of the control software for the user interfaces.
Although this specification primarily describes the downloading of operating systems, the principles of the present invention are also applicable to the downloading of control software in user interfaces and to the downloading of application software connected to the different parts of the electronic device.
The purpose of the present invention is to produce an improved method for installing/updating of two or more operating systems/user interfaces in an electronic device, and an electronic device in which two or more operating systems/user interfaces can be installed/updated via one interface. The method according to the present invention is characterized in what will be presented in the characterizing part of the appended claim 1. The electronic device according to the present invention is characterized in what will be presented in the characterizing part of the appended claim 7. Furthermore, the storing means according to the present invention is characterized in what will be presented in the characterizing part of the appended claim 11. The invention is based on the idea that the downloading of different operating systems, parts of the operating system and/or user interfaces in the electronic device is conducted via one processor block from which the sections to be downloaded are transmitted to each processor block via this single block.
With the present invention, considerable advantages are achieved when compared with methods and electronic devices of prior art. When using the method according to the invention, it is not necessary to establish a separate downloading interface of the operating system/user interface for each different processing block, but it is sufficient that the electronic device is provided with one downloading interface. Thus, it is possible to make the electronic device simpler in structure, and if necessary, smaller in size. When using wireless data transmission in the updating of the operating system/user interface, a further advantage is achieved, because it is not necessary to use separate adapters, and on the other hand, if necessary, it is possible to update the operating systems/user interfaces of several electronic devices simultaneously, which speeds up the initialization of new devices considerably. The device according to a preferred embodiment of the invention does not require a separate downloading interface, but upon downloading of the operating systems, it is possible to utilize another interface arrangement, such as infrared data transmission means, possibly available in connection with the electronic device. The present invention can be advantageously applied especially in portable electronic devices, which are preferably made light in weight and small in size. In a device according to yet another preferred embodiment of the invention, the downloading and updating of operating systems/user interfaces can be advantageously implemented via a mobile communication network, for example from the database of the manufacturer of the electronic device.